Booking.com Can No Longer Penalise Cheaper Direct Rates: What EU Hotels Can Do Now

If you run a hotel in Limassol or a group of apartments in Chania, you have probably priced your own website carefully around Booking.com: never below it, in case the platform noticed. On September 28, 2026 the European Commission published a factsheet setting out, in plain terms, that inside the European Economic Area this caution is no longer required. Here is what the rules say, what Booking.com changed, and where the risk now sits.

What the DMA obliges Booking.com to do

The Commission designated Booking Holdings as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act on May 13, 2024, for its online intermediation service, Booking.com. According to the factsheet, Booking.com has had to comply with all relevant DMA obligations since November 14, 2024.

The obligation that matters most to hotels is Article 5(3). The factsheet summarises it this way: Booking.com "must allow hotels, car rentals, and other relevant service providers to offer different prices, availability, inventory or commercial conditions on other online channels, including their own websites, than those offered on Booking.com, without facing measures that would restrict this freedom." Elsewhere it states that the DMA "bans parity requirements of any kind (contractual or other measures having the same effect)". That second phrase matters: a ranking penalty or a lost badge can enforce parity as well as a contract clause can.

A second obligation, Article 5(4), requires a gatekeeper to let business users, free of charge, "communicate and promote offers, including under different conditions, to end users acquired via its core platform service or through other channels". We return to what "acquired" means below.

What changed, and when

The factsheet describes two stages. In July 2024, Booking.com removed parity requirements from its General Delivery Terms, agreements and partner programmes, and dropped parity as an eligibility criterion for Genius, Preferred and Preferred Plus in the EEA. In September 2026, after what the Commission calls "a substantive regulatory dialogue", it added further measures, which the factsheet says "apply to all properties in the EEA".

Under BSB, the factsheet explains, Booking.com lowers the price shown to the customer and pays the difference itself, while the hotel receives its full rate and its commission stays the same. Hotels now also get reservation-level data on how BSB affects their bookings. The ranking clarification will be reflected in an update to Annex 4 of the General Delivery Terms "later this year".

What a hotel can now do

Price your direct channel on purpose

The Commission reasons that a hotel free to price its website more attractively is more likely to win direct bookings that carry no commission. That makes the direct rate a decision rather than a reflex. Some hotels will publish a lower public rate. Others will keep public rates aligned and offer a better price or better conditions to people who sign up: a member rate, free cancellation for longer, breakfast included. Member rates are also a way to build a guest list you own. Either way, the booking engine has to show the offer clearly, or the saving is lost at checkout.

Get the direct rate in front of searchers

Metasearch and Google Hotel Ads are where a cheaper direct rate becomes visible, because the traveller sees your price next to the platforms' prices for the same room. Google's Hotel Center supports two tools that fit a member-rate strategy. Conditional rates "offer different rates for an itinerary based on the end user's device, location, language or signed-in status". Private rates "can be booked only by members of specific groups of users: those on an audience list, members of a loyalty programme or members of Google One". Audience-list private rates now work only in ads, not free booking links.

In the EEA, the results page around those ads has also changed. Our piece on Google's DMA search redesign explains the new aggregator and supplier units for hotel searches, and how to measure what they change. Pricing freedom only pays if travellers can see your price.

Talk to past guests, at the right moment

Booking.com's 2025 DMA compliance report says it does not restrict partners from promoting offers to travellers outside its platform, and that its General Delivery Terms never did. For the small number of agreements that limited such contact, it sets out when a guest who booked through Booking.com counts as "acquired" by the hotel: from the scheduled check-in date of a paid reservation, once all cancellation options have expired. From then, the hotel may invite the guest to book directly next time. That means the stay itself: a card at reception, a sign-up for the member rate on the guest Wi-Fi page, a direct-booking offer in the post-stay email, sent with consent under your usual data protection rules.

The risks that remain

The DMA removes parity. It does not set commission, and nothing in the factsheet changes what you pay. Genius, Preferred and Preferred Plus remain what the factsheet calls "visibility-enhancing partner programmes", so leaving one to protect margin can cost you reach on a platform that may bring you much of your demand. That trade-off is commercial, and the DMA does not decide it for you.

• Contract terms outside the DMA. The factsheet covers parity and ranking inputs. Cancellation policies, payment terms and programme rules are still set by your agreement with Booking.com.
• Older contracts. The compliance report says some negotiated agreements rely on waivers that stay in force until the next renegotiation point. Check that yours was updated.
• Other platforms. Article 5(3) binds designated gatekeepers. Another platform's contract may still contain terms you should read closely.
• Outside the EEA. The measures apply to properties in the EEA. A UK hotel should not assume the same position applies to it.
• Ongoing cases. The Commission names the Greek, Italian and Spanish competition authorities as having investigated or still investigating Booking.com, and says the voluntary changes are without prejudice to national proceedings.

The hotels best placed to benefit can measure what a direct booking really costs, including the ad spend behind it, against the platform commission it replaces. That comparison is the basis for deciding how far below Booking.com your own rate should go. Our guide to measuring marketing in an AI attribution world covers how to track bookings whose path starts on someone else's page.